Haven’t Had Enough Spin Mix (52 minutes)

Summer 2012 is here! It’s Canada Day weekend and the weather has come out smokin’ hot. I was out for a two hour ride yesterday along the gorgeous Saltmarsh Trail in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia (pic below).

There’s lots of news. The BIG news is that Spinning Music will soon be moving to a new home, which will allow for many site improvements, including forums to replace the Bike Cafe page and the now-clunky Reader Playlists page. It has so many posts that it is very slow to load and even crashes in some browsers. I am still working on acquiring the URL – will post as soon as I have it.

In much smaller news, I recently acquired another weekly class (mostly men – interesting!) and I’ve been really enjoying the extra time on the bike.

This is one of two playlists I’ve been enjoying of late. My regular riders tell me this is one tough ride.

Call Me Maybe – Carly Rae Jepsen (3:13): Critics are calling this THE song of summer 2012. This young Canadian artist (and veteran of Canadian Idol) has taken the pop world by storm as her tune streaked to number one in Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States, and peaked in the top five in Austria, Belgium (Flanders), Germany, Netherlands, Norway and Poland. There’s even a Youtube video of Barack Obama singing it (with the lyrics cleverly spliced from his many public addresses). We’re going to use the song to warm up, so take that tension knob and push it up and away from you until you can feel the road under your feet.

Jet Lag (feat. Natasha Bedingfield) – Simple Plan (3:24): These Canadian rockers out of Montreal have almost the same knack for catchy pop tunes as Jepsen does. Let’s do some sprints: 30/30/30 seconds at 0:40 – 1:09, 1:35 – 2:02 and 2:32 – 3:10.

Adrenaline(Original Mix) – Liquid Soul (7:51): I’ve used this song before, but in this incarnation my riders tell me it’s the toughest part of the class. Good thing it comes early! This is a combo drill alternating between a minute of standing climb and a minute of surging (seated, 80% of your max, a not-quite-sprint). You”ll need medium tension here – about 5/10 or 50% of your max. Sounds easy? Look at the length of the song – there are four sets. That’s eight minutes of work before the next break.

Never Close Our Eyes – Adam Lambert (4:08): Adam Lambert is back with that great big voice. Take a swig from your water bottle and give your shoulders a few rolls while the song gets going. Crank the tension up medium-high to about 7/10. When the bass kicks in (around 0:30) we’re going to start with 8 count jumps for the verses. When the bass stops as we head into the chorus, come up out of the saddle into a standing climb and when Lambert hits the chorus, we’ll sprint! 30/30/30 at 1:15 – 1:45, 2:30 – 3:00, 3:30 – 4:04 . After the first chorus, it’s back to 8 count jumps. After the second chorus, there’s a bridge from 3:00 – 3:30. Use that for a quick breather. The third sprint starts at 3:30 and takes us through the end of the song.

Part of Me – Katy Perry (3:35): More sprints – 30/30/30 seconds at 0:30 – 0:60, 1:30 – 2:00 and 2:30 – 3:00. The breakup lyrics suggest this song might be about Russell Brand but Perry denies this – she says the song was written in early 2010 but wasn’t included on the Teenage Dream CD because it didn’t fit with the other songs.

Marry the Night – Lady Gaga (4:25): Still more sprints – hmm, could this be why my riders found this class so tough? Three of them again, 30/30/30 seconds. They’re at 0:42 – 1:11, 1:50 – 2:20, and 3:00 – 3:28.

Haven’t Had Enough - Marianas Trench (3:29): Shift gears here and we’ll do some jumps on a hill. Tension up to 9/10 and give me 8 counts for the verses and 4 counts for the choruses. These guys hail from Vancouver, British Columbia and they’re opening for Jepsen in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia on July 13.

Wild Ones(feat. Sia) – Flo Rida (3:53:) It’s almost a relief to dial the tension back and move into a standing climb. Flo Rida has another song that’s been getting a lot of airplay lately – the racy Whistle (which isn’t about whistling) but I haven’t quite decided how to use it. (Amy, if you read this, remind me how you used it in your classes. I went back to your Facebook page after you posted that playlist but I couldn’t find it.)

Tonight Tonight – Hot Chelle Rae (3:20): It’s back to jumps on a hill, but at a lower tension – 7/10 for this one. Mix it up between 8, 4, and 2 counts.

Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You) – Kelly Clarkson (3:42): One teensy weensy sprinting tune to finish us up with that pleasantly thrashed feeling. 30/30/50 seconds here, at 0:43 – 1:15, 1:40 – 2:14 and 2:39 – 3:29. I always coach riders to take sprints as they choose: standing, seated, or as surges, but I also encourage them to push just a little harder. Sometimes I ask for a show of hands, who has chosen to do the next sprint interval standing? (the better to get the competitive juices flowing). I remind them that they can start standing and sit down if they don’t have the juice to finish, but you know what? If I can get them out of the saddle, that’s where they stay.

One Life – Hedley (3:33): Ahhh…. cool down with some inspiring lyrics. Like Carly Jepsen, the lead singer for this British Columbia band is an ex-Canadian Idol contestant.

Young Homie – Chris Rene (3:29): Rene finished third on the first season of The X Factor (USA) and I was rooting for him all the way, as he left garbage collection and drug addiction to find his musical roots as a singer-songwriter. Some extra cool down and goodbye music.

After a long drought, you’re going to start hearing from me more often. I have another playlist in the hopper (will post in the coming week) and have resolved to start giving this blog a little more love. It’s tough when you have a toddler at home – parenting a wee one is kind of like having a hobby that takes up 80% of your waking hours outside of work, and as I write this, she is heading up to bed crying “I want the mama come too!” I keep reminding myself of Oprah’s wise words: “You can have it all. Just not all at once.”

When the solution was “out of the money”, the particular broker will no longer gets
the right to buy or maybe market of which tool. With regards to the particular commodities as well as futures
market place, the ones that invest in everything controlling legal papers can occasionally lose tons associated
with money should the market will go the wrong method, anything you’ll never ought to concern yourself with together with Binary Options. The key is actually to experience a strategy as well as stick to it, understanding that has a particular funds to get. A lot of type markets, in addition to value areas, are affected by details with regards to most of these financial factors and also the state of these property since they pertain specifically for the total economic climate.

A surge is a not-quite-sprint. It is done seated, at about 80% maximum capacity. It is not the all-out effort of a sprint, but more than a tempo drill, which riders could maintain for a whole song. A surge could go anywhere from 30-90 seconds or so. Think of it as one step back from a full sprint. Surges are useful for coaching longer periods of endurance and for riders who don’t want to (or can’t) give an all-out effort, but still want to incorporate intervals into their ride.

Excellent playlist Cynthia. Judging by the pools of sweat on the floor after the class this is probably the hardest playlist i have ever used. I used Calvin Harris ‘Let’s Go’ feat Ne-yo as a sprint song instead of the gaga song as my last song. Keep up the blogging.

Hey, no worries Jessica. There are a few songs out there that make me homicidal and no matter how popular they get, I will never, ever, use them in class. I also have a love/hate relationship with Pitbull.